“Ungrateful! when it was for your interest I was exerting myself,” returned D’Almayne, reproachfully; “but you do not explain why you have quitted _la belle_ Alice; you really are not sufficiently attentive; no pretty woman likes to be neglected.” “She’s a little fickle, heartless coquette, and I’ll let her see that I’m not so completely her slave as she appears to imagine,” answered Lord Alfred, snappishly, at the same time filling his glass with Champagne; “she refused to dance with me more than twice because it was not _étiquette_, and she wished to be extra particular because her husband was not here. I don’t think he’d overwhelm her with his attentions if he were, unless he means to alter very much. No: the fact is, she is out of humour, and chooses to vent it on me; it would just serve her right if I were to go home, and leave her to her own devices.” “Do nothing of the kind, _mon cher_; but listen to me, and--excuse me, but don’t drink any more Champagne, or you’ll do something absurd; your comic friend brewed that Sherry-cobbler too strong. Go quietly back to the Coverdale; try and persuade her to dance, but if she refuses, show no annoyance, and get her to allude again to her husband: then carelessly and incidentally, as if you had no design in what you were saying, suggest that she would scarcely be so particular, if she knew what a naughty boy he had been in Italy, and having excited her curiosity, tell her the following little anecdote.” As a bevy of men entered the refreshment-room at that moment, D’Almayne, linking his arm with that of Lord Alfred, led him aside, and made to him a communication, the nature of which will appear in the due course of this history. Lord Alfred seemed surprised, and, to his credit be it spoken, even pained, by the information thus afforded him; and when D’Almayne had concluded, his auditor remained a minute or so buried in thought, then he asked abruptly-- “You are _sure_ there is still some clandestine understanding between them--you are quite certain?” “I am as certain as a man can be of any clandestine proceeding to which he is not a party,” was the reply; “you are aware of what I observed on the occasion of the Horticultural Fête. I now relate to you the antecedents; you are no longer a child, but sufficiently a man of the world to draw your own deductions.” The adroit flattery on the weak point told: faith in truth and honour would argue a want of knowledge of life; so with a slight laugh, assumptive of an omniscience in evil, he replied, “I was willing to give him the benefit of a doubt, if it were possible; but, as you say, the thing is clear enough; and now, how is this to advantage me?” “Do you ask?” was the surprised rejoinder; “I thought you told me just now that the cruel fair one had snubbed you, by throwing her duty to her husband at your head; so it occurred to my simplicity that this information, properly applied, would prevent a recurrence of such rebuff.”